


Dornhein (Book 1/?)

by Nowhereissafe



Series: Dornhein [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Adventure, Boarding School, Canon Bisexual Character, Character(s) of Color, Detective Story, Elite School, Feminism, Friendship, Gen, Murder Mystery, set in Germany, young adult fiction
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:00:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 20,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28247298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nowhereissafe/pseuds/Nowhereissafe
Summary: Dornhein boarding school is one of the most popular high schools for the elite from Germany, Austria and Switzerland. It's common knowledge that admission to it is a privilege due only to those with the money or the undeniable talent to meet the school's standards.That Jonas doesn't fit in there is clear to him from the start - and it would be if his roommates didn't remind him of it at every opportunity. That's why he has only one goal: to make his stay here as short as possible.What he hasn't reckoned with, however, is that behind the modern facades and chic of Dornhein lie mysteries that remain a secret even to the school administration. For the students of this school have created a world for themselves; one that no one else has access to. And the dangers of this world have already cost one student his life.The only question is: Can Jonas solve Dornhein's mystery before the next one is killed? Or possibly himself?
Series: Dornhein [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2069211
Kudos: 2





	1. Character overview

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger disclaimer:  
> • antisemitism (mentioned/implied)*  
> • cancer (implied)*  
> • classism  
> • death  
> • death of a minor character*  
> • domestic violence (implied)*  
> • drowning death (mentioned)  
> • drug addiction (mentioned)*  
> • insulting expressions against mentally unstable people*  
> • fire (mentioned)  
> • moderate drugs*  
> • murder  
> • profanity (a lot)  
> • racism  
> • rich people  
> • suicide (mentioned/implied)  
> • violence (described semi-graphically)*  
> • vomiting*  
> • xenophobia*
> 
> *do NOT apply yet, will however later in the book.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> These are the characters that will play a role in this book. Might not be a big role for some of them, but whenever you come across a name that confuses you, you can go back here and check who the hell that one was.

**The List**

_created by Jonas Hager (16 years) about the mystery of the burned library and the drowned student_

_**Room O303:** _

**Jonas Hager:** _tenth grader, student at Dornhein since the 2020/21 school year, scholarship recipient, author of The List._

 **Alexander "Alex" Schneider:** _tenth grader, student at Dornhein since the 2017/18 school year, ally._

 **Hagen Cyrian Waack:** _eleventh grader, student at Dornhein since the 2014/15 school year, son of school owners, running for student body president, suspect._

 **Konstantin Marlow:** _eleventh grader, student at Dornhein since the 2014/15 school year, running for student representative, suspect._

 **Luis Freier:** _tenth grader, student at Dornhein since the 2015/16 school year._

 **Peter B** **ö** **hm:** _tenth grader, student at Dornhein since the 2015/16 school year._

_**Room W315:** _

**Katherina Charlotte Marie "Katie" von Rubenstein:** _(all names the author could find) tenth grader, student at Dornhein since the 2017/18 school year, running for student body president, suspect? Ally? Still to be answered._

 **Felicitas Mahalia "Feli" Adam:** _tenth grader, student at Dornhein since the 2015/16 school year, ally._

 **Henriette Schwartz:** _tenth grader, student at Dornhein since the 2015/16 school year._

 **Rosalie Walther:** _eleventh grader._

 **Emma Siechens-Harkov:** _eleventh grader._

_**Other students:** _

_**Eighth graders:** _

**Helivigis Augusta Hildegard "Liv" von Rubenstein:** _student at Dornhein since the 2017/18 school year, ally._

**Heidi Wacker**

**Verle Moser**

**Ronja Moser**

_**Ninth graders:** _

**Henrik Seifert** : _student at Dornhein since the 2016/17 school year, cousin of the author, ally._

**Martin Walther**

**Sebastian Steinke**

_**Eleventh graders:** _

**Eva Grün:** _scholarship student, running for student body president, ~~ally~~ suspect._

 **Otto Hartmann:** _running for student body president, suspect._

 **Maria Sorokin:** _suspect._

 **Matilda Freideck:** _running for student body president._

**Antonia Weithaas**

_**School employees:** _

**Mrs. Johanna Waack:** _principal._

 **Mrs. Marita von Kemler:** _head secretary._

 **Mrs. Nowak:** _kitchen lady._

 **Mrs. Salih:** _nurse._

 **Mrs. Melitz:** _head of the artistic profile._

 **Professor Steinke:** _physics teacher._

 **Mr. Tanaka:** _math teacher._

 **Mrs. Karlsen:** _German teacher._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This whole story was originally written in German. I translated it with the help of DeepL and edited it afterwards but I'm not 100% sure if the English is correct everywhere. So forgive me that. If anything appears to be entirely unclear, pls ask what I mean by it lol I'll try to explain.


	2. PART 1: Shark Tank

_ Accessed June 13, 2020, 3:04 p.m. _

I need to talk to you.

I found out something that I don't like at all.

We need to do something. Change of plans. Radically. Now.

Meet me behind the school at 8pm today and I'll tell you more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should mention I began writing this before 2020 and I couldn't have possibly known.


	3. 1.1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first chapter is really long I apologize.

You'd think it was too late to think everything still sucked without exception. The truth was, it was never too late for that. And this was just the beginning. It was always easier to cope with everything when it was still years, months, weeks away. And at some point it was only two days. And suddenly it was no longer so easy to forget. Jonas had now realized that, too.

Now he was standing here, on this huge, completely foreign site, with such a gigantic building with a glass wall that he could already see from the courtyard that he would not be able to find his way around. To the left and right of it were two smaller buildings, connected to the main building by closed bridges. What Jonas only noticed now were the black shadows above the windows, which were located on the right side of the building. They stretched upward, a bit like eyeshadows of the windows. He didn’t know that there had been a fire here.

But he knew nothing about this place in general, so this fact did not shock him.

A tall woman, with a severe updo and high heels, shook hands with his father, whom she towered over by at least half a head, with one of the most forced lipstick smiles Jonas had ever seen. "I'm glad you arrived safely, Mr. Hager," she said as she did so, which was probably meant to sound polite, but came across as a reproach. "I can assure you, we are very excited to see how your son will do here."

Funny somehow, when one was spoken of in the third person, even though one was present. Especially because this was one thing that had been with Jonas since kindergarten and until now so close to tenth grade. This was due, in addition to the general side effects of being a child and teenager, to the fact that he was immediately labeled a "foreigner" with his dark complexion, black bushy hair, and dark brown eyes. Even when he was out with his white father - he wasn't respectable enough either to avoid judgmental looks.

"It is also a great honor for us to be able to take this opportunity, Mrs. von Kemler," Markus Hager replied in his best business manner - straight back, serious facial expression, composed voice. "After all, my nephew has also been placed here, and I've already heard a lot of good things about this school from my sister." At this, he pulled up the corners of his mouth a little, which was a sign for the woman - who had previously introduced herself as head secretary Mrs. Marita von Kemler - to force out a short laugh, but she didn't seem to possess that kind of empathetic receptivity. Jonas did not know why his father had mentioned his sister's son, since he had been at odds with her for years, but he saved himself the mental capacity to think about it.

Mr. Hager, who now seemed to realize this as well, seemed irritated at first, then quickly cleared his throat and said, "Whatever." That, Jonas had to admit to himself, was the funniest thing that had happened today. Didn't have a high quality, but at least it had briefly snapped his father out of his euphoric frenzy - which, as an outsider, you wouldn't have noticed much of, but Jonas had known him since birth.

"I assume there's some paperwork to fill out due to the delay?" he continued, as if his brief groundlessness hadn't even existed. Jonas sighed softly. Would have been too good to be true.

Mrs. von Kemler still looked straight past Jonas at his father, without once pulling a face. "Then please follow me to the secretary's office. Your son will be given a tour of the school grounds in that time."

"Oh, will he?", Jonas couldn't help saying, for which the esteemed head secretary actually looked at him. In an attempt at appeasement, he raised his shoulders. "I just thought that was actually your job, because I can't imagine how I'm going to manage this on my own."

" _Jonas_ ," Mr. Hager, who had now remembered his son, hissed admonishingly. The corners of Mrs. von Kemler's mouth twitched until she finally forced a fake shark smile.

"Felicitas will take over, I'll send her right out. If you'll follow me then, Mr. Hager?" Despite being addressed directly, this woman had somehow managed _not_ to address Jonas directly. Respect.

"Oh, I see," he therefore added, "well, if _Felicitas_ will do it, then everything is clear." That one didn’t pull. Probably because Jonas' powers of persuasion were tempered as he had to come to terms with the fact that people here were actually called that. Fair enough. Felicitas wasn't quite so bad. She could have been called Guinevere or something.

At least Mr. Hager had noticed that his son had said something, because he gave him a sideways glance that said, _Be glad I'm too authoritarian and controlled to smack you._ He himself, on the other hand, just said, "Take your hands out of your pockets, please." Jonas thought for a moment about saluting, but that was too silly for him.

So he resigned himself to waiting outside a closed door for some woman with a snooty name to give him a tour of the school where he would be living from now on. If living in a school wasn't bad enough, it had to be filled with filthy rich snobs. He had already prepared himself for that, but he was not at all happy about it.

When he had already toyed with the idea of going to the bathroom and not coming back, the door opened again and a girl stepped out. This girl had unusually jet-black, curly hair, deep blue eyes - as if she had only the pure form of one color, or nothing at all - and a somewhat astonished look on her softly drawn face, which, however, had vanished barely a second later.

"Hi," Jonas said, just trying not to be rude by not saying anything.

The girl pulled the corners of her pink lips up slightly, which, unlike Mrs. Better Secretary, didn't seem forced and tense, as a fake smile should. Maybe, Jonas dared to think, she was just being friendly. Then he quickly lowered his expectations.

"You're Jonas, aren't you?" the black-haired girl asked, her slight smile not fading.

"The one and only," it slipped out of Jonas. It was a sort of protective reflex - giving ironic answers when he didn't know what else to say. Didn't always have the desired effect. "'Scuse me," he added, then, a little embarrassed, and decided to take his hands out of his jacket pockets. "Wasn't funny. Um, yeah, that's me. And you're Felicitas?"

"That's right. But most people call me Feli, which I prefer a bit, to be honest." For emphasis, she nodded briefly, then drew in her lips and ended the subject with this. She looked at Jonas and smiled a friendlier, more honest smile than before, in which dimples formed on her cheeks and her eyes seemed to take on a kind of soft glow - which was theoretically impossible, but it gave the impression.

"Let's get started, then."

"Ready when you are," Jonas replied. He suppressed a sigh. It was hard enough dealing with new people - even if they couldn't all buy Jonas's complete existence as soon as he said something wrong. And the fact that this Feli-girl was preternaturally pretty in addition to her fancy name didn't really give him any confidence.

He was sure that he had never met anyone who had anything close to her picture-perfect looks - and not just from her heart-shaped face or her dark, straight eyebrows, which certainly matched the beauty ideals even here, her entire image, her demeanor exuded an elegance that could not be found in the ordinary mortal world. On her, the black pleated skirt, white shirt, and dark blue jacket didn't look as silly as Jonas' school uniform had looked on him in front of the mirror, but first, fit like a glove, and second, looked totally chic.

Feli told something about the school's history, how it had originally been located at Lake Constance, but unfortunately had to be closed until it had reopened here on the outskirts of Berlin in 1998. At that time, the boarding school still had the name "Dornhein", but was now officially called "Rainer Maria Rilke Boarding School with Grammar School* Interpretation Berlin East". However, most had written their Abi** before that was pronounced, so the school was just called _Dornhein_.

"That was the name of the place where the school originally stood," Feli explained. "It was located in the castle that belonged to it, which is now empty again."

"And that was then passed down through the generations like that or what?", Jonas tried to get a little involved.

"Many like the name Dornhein, precisely because of its noble past. Others want a simple and compact name for the school when they want to talk about it," Feli said. Jonas himself just found that the name appealed to him as well. "Dornhein", having the word _thorn_ and an old synonym for _death_ or _devil_ in it, had just the right ring of pain and doom.

Without explaining the train of thought in more detail, he asked the question that had nestled in the back of his mind. "Was there a fire here?"

Feli looked over at him briefly, irritated by the abrupt change of subject. "Yes. Right before summer vacation, in the east wing, which I'm sure you're referring to. There has been an exceptional technical error in the library." She had nothing more to say about it, and Jonas wasn't interested enough to ask.

At some point, it became too uninteresting for him, and he tuned out to look at the interior architecture - and also Feli, if he had to admit it to himself. It made him uncomfortable to keep catching himself watching her curls, falling accurately and perfectly, at the bounces they did with each of her steps, or her posture, so bolt upright that without meaning to, he pulled his own shoulders back.

"... meet tomorrow at first and second period for the principal's address at the beginning of the school year," Feli just finished her sentence, which was the first thing Jonas picked up after his sprinkled trance. This was inconvenient, since Feli had apparently gotten to the important information without him realizing it.

"Uh... 'scuse me, what?" he asked again, immediately regretting it, which wasn't helped by clearing his throat and putting his hands in his pockets.

Feli didn't seem to let on, yet she raised her eyebrow in a meaningful way, and repeated, "The auditorium we're standing in front of right now, that's where the whole school will be listening to a speech by Mrs. Waack tomorrow. You should be here before the first lesson, around the same time as on ordinary class days, but don't worry. It's pretty hard to be late here."

"Oh, okay," Jonas agreed before he could even think about what that meant. "Uh...thanks."

Feli gave him a brief amused look, then threw her head back and laughed. A bell-bright, elegant laugh. So either it wasn't real or she was some kind of angelic being. Still, her eyes glittered with honest amusement as she looked back up at him. "You're welcome, it's my job after all - to support new students."

"Oh. I see." Not a smart remark, though better than nothing.

Feli shrugged her shoulders. "How did you think I got the honor?"

"I don't know. I kind of assumed you were just sitting in the secretary's office at the wrong time."

She didn't seem to think that was funny. Too bad.

Instead, she continued unflinchingly with the offered language subjects that were taught here, and Jonas's interest sank at the mention of "French".

"You know what would interest me?", Jonas quickly tried a segue. Again Feli gave him a questioning look with a raised eyebrow. Admittedly, she was pretty good at that. "Where the toilets are around here. I mean, you guys have some, right ...?"

"... as far as I know," Feli replied, and Jonas again couldn't tell if that was meant to be ironic. "Try back there in the hall."

"All right, thank you."

And he really did thank her, because it gave him a chance to be with himself for a moment. It didn't do him much good, and Feli seemed nice, but he was losing one more nerve about this school with every passing minute. Most likely it wasn't even because of the school itself, but just the fact that he had to stay quite a long time for being here involuntarily. So long, in fact, that he had to walk a hundred and who knows how many more times along those stupid corridors to the bathroom, which stretched out so much that Jonas' steps became more and more expansive, because otherwise he didn't feel like he was making any progress at all.

Although the outer wall of the building was made of glass, it was dark in here. In fact, the area to the rear was so expansive that some hallways seemed to run parallel, which Jonas found disgusting. Just like the portraits on the walls, mostly depicting old white men staring sternly down at him. Maybe that's what Feli meant when she said it was hard to be late. Because the very haunted-looking images of former principals - that there were actually schools that felt so special - looked down on you like they were going to pop out of the picture frame and eat your soul at any moment.

It was like an absurd, newfangled, satirical version of Hogwarts from _Harry Potter_.

And at that moment, he ran right into Draco Malfoy.

Both he and the white-haired guy who had appeared out of nowhere seemed to have just been so distracted that they managed to run into each other in an empty twenty-foot-wide hallway, which, when Jonas thought back on it later, was not exactly unimpressive. However, it had to be said that the stranger's cell phone had flown out of his hand in the process, which could possibly explain what had distracted him.

"Bloody hell," Draco cursed, pushing Jonas off of him before he even realized why his shoulder was hurting. "Can't you watch where you're going?!"

"Why should I? You ran into me too!" He knew himself how unnecessary it was to start a fight before he even officially attended school, but he was generally not in a good mood and even less in the mood to be picked on by the first person who came along. Especially when said person was only 5’3 ft tall and looked like he had come out of a caricature.

Draco's disgusted expression turned into a grin so nasty that Jonas almost took a step back. "You're new here, can it be?" asked Draco in a tone that made Jonas think of a snake first. There was something extremely surreal about the guy, in an unpleasant way.

Although it had been a rhetorical question, Jonas only said curtly, "Yes?" In the sense of, _Yes, and? What does that have to do with you?_

"Well," Draco merely said as he continued his walk backwards so as not to break eye contact with Jonas, "maybe you should shut up more often in the near future if you don't know who you're talking to, or you'll be going home again next week."

At that, he abruptly turned away and continued going toward the stairwell. Actually, he almost ran. Obviously, he was in a hurry to get away - or get somewhere. Super important, surely. _O_ _r_ _you'll be going home_ _again_ _next week._ Jonas would say that sounded like a weak threat. Heh. Maybe this Draco guy shouldn't be so forward himself if he didn't know who he was talking to. Too bad he was already too far gone to throw that at him.

"The principal will still want to talk to you," Feli greeted him back after Jonas had actually been to the restroom. It hadn't been a bad restroom, very hygienic, soap worked, there were towels and toilet paper - still, he had expected more from such an elite facility. But maybe they didn't think that restroom conditions affected their students' potential. That was debatable, Jonas thought, though he had just agreed with himself that he didn't want to argue.

"Okay," he said, almost expecting Feli to raise her eyebrow again in that judgmental way, but it didn't happen.

"Well then," she said instead, "we'd be done here. In the secretary's office you'll be asked the control questions." Seeing Jonas' shocked expression, she grinned. "Just kidding." Which was something Jonas hadn't expected from her at all, but he'd also known her for about half an hour. It had seemed like at least three whole ones to him.

"Funny," he just grumbled when he couldn't think of a clever response, and immediately thought he came across like the last bastard - constantly hanging out the big sarcastic box and then getting offended at something so meaningless.

"I thought you were such a joker," Feli agreed, but she didn't seem to hold it against him. "Back to the office I can take you, though I'm sure you remember the way if you've been paying attention."

"Man, what are you, a teacher?" To take some of the brusqueness out of his words, Jonas tried a wry grin, even though it probably couldn't be recognized as such.

"Oh bother," was all Feli said, and then she stopped talking. And Jonas was sure he had spoiled it. Which was a shame, since there probably weren't many nice people at this school, and the very first thing he'd done was earn himself a reputation as a weird jerk. Strong point. Maybe he should ask Draco what exactly he had to do to get kicked out as quickly and as non-negotiably as possible. He seemed to know a lot about that.

In front of the secretary's office, his father and Mrs. Facial Palsy were already waiting for him and Feli - although, mainly for him.

"You're going to talk to the director," Mr. Hager also greeted him. Funny how this new greeting seemed to settle in.

"Yes," Jonas said, careful to keep his hands in his pockets. "Why is that, anyway? Is she still going to decide if maybe she won't let me in after all because she thinks my nose looks weird or something -"

"Funny," Feli quoted in the same grumpy tone of voice Jonas had used. He squinted over at her, but she just looked straight ahead, seeming to suppress a smile. All right. Maybe he hadn't spoiled it completely after all.

At least not with her, because his father was apparently anything but thrilled by what Jonas was saying all day today. "Jonas," he hissed, with a dangerous sharpness in his voice, which he was trying so hard to control, "you're going to introduce yourself to Mrs. Waack, because that's just how it's done here, all right? Because you're newly included in an already existing grade, which is _not a given_ , so you're going to show gratitude, as you should, understand? Because this should be _an honor_ for you."

"An _honor_?" repeated Jonas. There were a lot of things he could think of to say about that. Why it should be such an honor to be shipped off by his own father, to some asylum full of white snobs who would never see him as anything but a fucking doormat anyway. It was his chance now to show resistance. To show that he really and absolutely did not like this whole situation at all, and that the fact that he hadn't even been asked didn't make it any better. So that even that weird head secretary there could see that he could never be as shining an example for this school as they were making this out to be. But instead, he just took his hands out of his pockets and said, "Understood. _Father_."

"Felicitas, please go back to the dormitories," Mrs. Facial Palsy instructed Feli, which was the first thing she had said since the two of them had rejoined. But she was no longer smiling her creepy shark smile. Now her face was just a rigid, neutral mask. Which wasn't much better.

Feli obeyed, but turned to Jonas again before doing so and gave him an encouraging smile, saying, "You'll be fine." Then she turned and disappeared into the stairwell, and Jonas could only look after her and wish she hadn't left him alone in the shark tank.

"The school administration is one floor up," von Something explained, addressing Mr. Hager. "Why?" asked Jonas. It hadn't even been intentional. It had just kind of slipped out.

She then just looked at him, for the first time directly since he had arrived here, and asked, "Why not?"

At that moment, Jonas decided he wouldn't last a week here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *There are two forms of high schools in Germany: the Secondary School and the Grammar School ("Realschule" and "Gymnasium"). The Secondary School goes up to 10th grade and provides a secondary school diploma or middle school graduation. With that you can go into apprenticeships. To study at a university you have to have visited a Grammar School, which goes up to 12th or 13th grade and provides the general university degree, the "Abitur".
> 
> **The "Abitur" (short "Abi") is the final exam you take in a German high school. It is usually written in 12th grade, sometimes in 13th, but there are hardly any states left whose schools still go up to 13th grade.


	4. 1.2

"So?" asked Katie without looking up from her makeup mirror as the door to the dorm opened. "Did you have fun?"

Feli stepped in and closed it behind her again quietly and elegantly, as if there was anyone else here who could have been bothered by it. It was one of the things Liv had noticed about Feli from the start: Everything she did seemed decidedly deliberate.

"It was all right," she replied to Katie's question, smoothing out the pleated skirt of her school uniform - well, if that was possible. However, it made no difference at all how Feli's clothes looked. Everything simply looked good on her.

Henriette, who had been sitting silently on the bed all this time, slid over a bit, and hitched, " _It w_ _as all right_ , how do you mean?"

Feli shrugged her shoulders as she complied with the silent request and sat down next to her friend. "Well, the boy doesn't really seem to be fond of the school. Was more or less his father's sole decision, I guess, from what I've gathered. And I believe he thinks he's a little funnier than he actually is. Pretty unusual for a scholarship student, actually ..."

"Was he cute, at least?" asked Katie, after adjusting her freshly applied lipstick a bit more with her pinky finger. At that, she still didn't look up from her mirror.

Henri's face immediately took on a rosy color and she looked uncomfortably to the side.

Feli sheepishly brushed a raven black strand from her face. "I don't know. Haven't been paying much attention to that."

"So just daddy issues and amateur comedian, aha," Katie summarized. "Nothing new, then. I've met some of those before."

Liv frowned. Funny that she of all people should say that. "You wouldn't happen to mean your new _boyfriend_ , would you? It wouldn't be entirely inaccurate, after all." Liv noticed from the side Henriette's startled look, as she always did when someone dared to put even a subtle snarkiness into their words when talking to Katie.

Finally, her sister managed to take her eyes off her reflection. She smiled indulgently at Liv with her freshly bright red lips - though it seemed rather condescending. "Oh, Livvy. It's about time you grew up."

"That I _grew up_?" repeated Liv sharply, furrowing her eyebrows angrily. "What does that have to do with anything now?"

"I'm just saying." Katie turned her attention back to the hand mirror, now to move a few of her foxy red strands into their proper place, or just to continue looking at herself in it. "Being jealous just because I have a boyfriend and you don't, that's a little childish, don't you think?"

_Don't respond_ , Liv said to herself. Instead, she rolled her eyes with a sigh and turned away. Katie had never been easy. On the contrary. Most of the time she was mean, and especially to Liv. The main problem was just that she was still her sister, and Liv had simply missed the boat on the boarding school world, so now she had to stick with what she had. A self-confident, popular and above all _white_ shield. Now there weren't many students here who weren't white, and black ones least of all. That was exhausting.

"No, guys," Henriette said, "please don't argue again." With her soft, delicate voice, it wasn't hard to pull off as pleading a tone as she did. Henri could come across as very pitiful. Most days, at least once, someone would ask if she was all right, since being so small, skinny and pale generally made her look very ill. In the summer, her still chalk-white face was sometimes dotted with black, thick freckles. However, the worry about her was unfounded most of the time. Feli would notice immediately if she was missing anything.

Katie sweetly reassured her, "Oh, don't worry, we're not fighting at all. Livvy's just once again not really thinking before she talks, it happens."

"All right, guys!" intervened Feli, who had protectively put an arm around Henri. "How about we talk about something else? Next school year, for example. That starts tomorrow, after all. Pretty crazy, isn't it? That after - this thing now, it's just going on as normal."

Liv couldn't help but keep her gaze transfixed on her sister, but still noticed out of the corner of her eye how Henriette flinched. Katie didn't look like she was paying attention to Feli's words at all. Casually, she said, "Well, I guess we don't have many options on that matter."

With a clack, Katie's hand mirror closed and she looked around the room. "But - more importantly - do you know what I'm going to do later this year?"

Liv suppressed a groan. She couldn't believe that Katie was really going to go through with this. Of course, she saw herself as a leader, and for some reason the other students seemed to as well, but she was still _Katie_.

"Run for student body president," she finished the sentence.

You couldn't say Katie didn't know how to handle the responsibility of making her own decisions on behalf of the student body. Except she didn't represent the entire student body. She was part of the part of the student body that held a lot to its high standards and liked to let the whole world know that it did. That wasn't a good set of circumstances for one thing, and then secondly there was all the social violence that would be compounded for her, and that was what Katie was actually keen on. And what Liv feared the most. Rightly so.

To her surprise, Feli let out a short, bright laugh. "Please don't take offense, Katie, but I imagine being student council president would be a bit boring for you in the long run."

"And way too stressful," Henriette added. "Don't you have to sort out a bunch of stuff, and then everyone disagrees with it and it's all your fault?"

Katie rolled her eyes with an exaggerated groan and pretended she hadn't heard that last sentence. Disappointing, a little, but not surprising. "Oh, Henri, I don't want to be President of the United States, just student body president. Yeah, not even principal! Because that's who has the actual power over the school, you know? The student body president doesn't really have any say."

"Mmm," was all Liv said. Maybe it sounded like some kind of approval to Katie, or maybe she already knew her sister's opinion on the matter well enough.


	5. 1.3

The principal was a very elegant woman. She had dark brown hair that fell neatly combed to her shoulders and looked almost slightly graying at the roots, even though she didn't seem much older than Mr. Hager.

Unlike the unfriendly head clerk, her smile radiated a warmth that almost made Jonas feel better. Almost. He was far from convinced. But she immediately looked directly at him after her called "Come in!", which was also something in that she was gravely different from Mrs. Facial Palsy.

"You're Jonas, right?"

The latter answered in the affirmative, wondering if there were any other students - perhaps even on scholarship - who were new this year. It would be nice not to be completely alone. He knew his cousin Henrik, but it wasn't really possible to talk about _knowing_ him. They had last seen each other ten years ago at their grandfather's funeral. The rich new husband of Jonas' aunt Anna-Marie had been the final wedge between her and his father. Jonas suspected that was at least one of the reasons Mr. Hager had wanted to send him to this school, of all places.

"Very well, Jonas," the principal continued. She had gotten up and walked over to him and the two other adults and now extended her hand to him, which he took with a polite smile. The human decency this woman displayed made him forget for a moment that he was planning a rebellion. "My name is Johanna Waack, as I'm sure you know. Would you like to sit down?"

"Um..." Jonas almost looked over at his father, seeking help, but then restrained himself. "Yes, thank you."

He took a seat across from the desk, which was slightly offset in the middle of the room, while Mrs. Waack greeted his father as well and offered him to sit with Jonas. She just thanked Mrs. von Kemler for bringing them both here, and then Jonas heard her leave. That was a relief. After all, Mrs. Shark didn't seem to have been the biggest fan of his either.

"So, Jonas," Mrs. Waack began, even as she sat back down at the desk herself, maintaining eye contact with Jonas, "you've already been given a tour?"

"Uh ... yes. From Feli ... well Felicitas, I ... don't know her last name."

"Yes, I know, Feli is our preferred candidate for the job," she confirmed with a smile. So she called Feli by the name she herself preferred. Apparently, closeness to her students seemed to be important to her. Like those poisonous fish that pretended to be a stone, only to eat their prey in a flash when it got too close.

"Now repeat for me," Mrs. Waack now asked, "what school did you attend before and did it have any particular focus that you would like to focus on here as well?"

Before Jonas could say anything, however, his father spoke up for him, "The Julius-Mosen-Gymnasium Schwabing-West with a focus on the natural sciences."

"Interesting," commented Mrs. Waack. "However, I asked Jonas and not you, Mr. Hager. The questions for you will come a little later."

"I see. Excuse me."

Mrs. Waack turned back to Jonas, "So if your school had a science profile, what about the subjects you like so much? Science, too?"

"Um ... could be?" Jonas was indeed always a bit perplexed by such questions. Everyone expected him to be totally enthusiastic about school and learning, but the opposite was true. In his own opinion, he was just lucky that math was easy for him, and he had acquired a sufficient sense of duty from his father's example to get the subjects in order.

"And languages," the principal continued when she noticed that Jonas wasn't going to make anything further out of this, "how about that?"

"Could be." He grimaced, whereupon his father nudged him reprovingly. Communication between them had been very much limited to reprimands lately. "I mean, I'm not in trouble now with ... anything. Otherwise, I don't think I'd be here either. I mean, German sucks, but otherwise ..."

"Why is that? Do you have problems with spelling or grammar?"

"Uh ... no -"

"He's a native speaker, anyway, if that's what you were implying," Mr. Hager interjected not really cleverly, at which Jonas winced. Of course, if no one else did, his own father had to remind him and everyone else that racists liked to think of him as "not German". He was not white, for sure, but white and German were not synonyms.

Mrs. Waack only gave him a very neutral look and a stare directly into his eyes in return, which wasn't much on its own, but was quite intimidating with her technique, Jonas thought. "I didn't mean to, but good to know. Of course, even then there wouldn't be a problem, the training here is by no means limited to skills students already have." She smiled again, but her gaze had retained that coldness with which she had stared at his father. "From there, don't worry, Jonas."

"I do not," the latter assured her, whereupon it immediately struck him how stupid that must’ve actually sounded. "I mean, I don't think the subjects are my biggest worry." That sounded even more stupid. Congratulations. Fighting evil with greater evil.

"I see," Mrs. Waack said. "And if I could follow up on that directly: What exactly do you see as your biggest worry right now?"

Slowly, this whole thing felt more and more like a test to Jonas. It was possible that Mrs. Waack was actually deciding right now whether she wanted Jonas at her boarding school at all or whether she would rather leave him where he was. He knew that would do him no good. Either way, his father would look for some stupid elite school for him. He had already decided that Jonas' "talent" wasn't right in the normal world. His whole former life had been _erased_. He couldn't go back. But what was the point of refusing to rebel?

He looked her straight in the eye and spoke in a deadly serious voice, "That I won't get anything to eat in the next fifteen minutes. I'm as hungry as a horse."


	6. 1.4

The common room was almost empty. Only two or three individual students were here, still making their final preparations for the new school year. It would definitely be busier if everyone had already arrived back, but for some reason most of the students didn't return until the afternoon of the last day of vacation. At one time the school administration wanted to introduce the system where students would return by Friday of the last week of vacation because the gates were closed for the weekend. However, there had then been countless parent uprisings because most working people would not be able to bring their children to Berlin during the week, or because some only returned from trips on the weekend, and so on. However, Liv hadn't noticed any of this until it was almost over. She and Katie always left school late and came back early. Most vacations they just stayed here.

Just at the moment the girls entered the large, wallpapered room, another girl appeared behind them, with a long, black ponytail and an ever-so-slightly hurried expression in her dark blue eyes. She, with her Kazakh roots, was one of the only students other than Liv who was sometimes considered "foreign". That's why Liv liked her, even though they never exchanged a word.

At least there were some adults here who were people of color. The nurse, Mrs. Salih, for example, was also black. She was one of Liv's closest allies.

"Hey, Katie," Maria made herself known. Katie turned to her and smiled. Liv's sister really could smile kindly. Not with that constant arrogance and irony that was usually in her smiles. It made Liv a little nostalgic, if she had to be honest with herself for once. Like the old days, before they'd gone to boarding school. Before Liv found out the hard way that she was just Katie's _adopted_ sister after all, and could never be considered anything else because of their differences. Katie didn't often allow that kind of nostalgia.

"Maria, what a surprise to see you here," she greeted her friend straight, though it didn't sound like it was a surprise at all. "I mean, where else would you be? But I wanted to talk to you about something anyway - it doesn't matter that the girls and my sister are there, right?" _The girls and my sister._ Liv was left out, though not important enough to be named either. She sighed silently. It was a different time before boarding school than it was now, and that was really hard to block out, too.

"No, definitely not," Maria waved it off before joining them on the communal sofa.

Liv noticed that Henriette looked a little longingly toward the kitchen next door, but then turned her gaze straight ahead again. Understandable. Liv herself was starting to get hungry, too, she realized. But maybe she was just so underwhelmed that her body was looking for something to occupy itself with. Katie and Maria talked about how the vacations had been, while Feli and Henri sometimes laughed along, though Henri certainly didn't even know why she was laughing. Actually, though, this "meeting" was surely again about the fact that Maria was the only one of Katie's contacts who knew anything about computers, and that was handy if you wanted to be student council president.

It was just so obvious. That as soon as she had the chance, Katie would try to make her authority so clear to all the other students by running for student body president, it had just been so predictable. And that was despite the fact that she would never in her life like to get her hands dirty for anything around here.

Liv propped her head on her hand. There was no point in continuing to fuss pointlessly over her sister now. She wouldn't change, at most it would only get worse. Someday, when they were both done with school, they would just think back to that time and laugh about how silly and childish their behavior had been. Or they would lead their own lives, never exchanging addresses or phone numbers and blocking out each other's existence until someday a phone call came announcing the other’s passing.

But Liv didn't have to worry about that now. What had Malie - the von Rubensteins' Polynesian maid - always told her to do when you had to wait a long time for something or needed to distract yourself? Search for colors. Identify sounds. Inconspicuously observe people. Liv liked to do that. She used to feel like a secret agent on a mission when she watched the other kids in the playground - the way they moved, who they talked to and how, their facial expressions, their clothes. Just everything.

Maybe that already fell under a very mild kind of stalking, but Liv didn't attach herself to anyone. She didn't really care how often or why someone scratched their nose or used the word "like" when speaking. It was a way to keep her mind occupied when otherwise any things came out of it that weren't worth thinking about.

There wasn't much in the way of people in the lounge at the moment. Most of them were sitting behind Liv anyway, and it would probably be a little strange to turn around now just to look at how her hair was tied or whatever. And next to her was the door that led to the kitchen, where Mrs. Nowak, known by some as just the _kitchen lady_ , worked. However, she was not in sight at the moment. That would change as soon as someone didn't tie their tie properly or even looked near a phone that was strictly forbidden here, but Liv didn't feel like being yelled at in a mixture of German and Polish right now.

She tried to rejoin the conversation briefly, but then decided she wasn't interested in what kind of program could be used to create which additional effects for designs.

Then someone new entered the room. Someone who caught Liv's attention - and mostly by the fact that he was brown-skinned. His skin was lighter than Liv's, but it was several levels too dark to be white. His black-brown curls looked like they had been combed as smooth as possible rather unsuccessfully, and even from a distance she could see that he had dark brown eyes. Just as they fit into the overall picture. Liv had never thought she'd see another black student standing around in the common room. If he was a student.

Because aside from that, he stood out because he wasn't wearing a school uniform, even though he seemed to be Katie's age. Instead, the boy wore loose, rolled-up jeans, simple brown street shoes, a black shirt, and a brown, rather beat-up leather jacket with his hands tucked into the pockets. If he was lucky, Mrs. Nowak wouldn't notice the shoes he'd walked on the carpeted floor in, and wouldn't immediately give him a ten-minute lecture on what orders were to be followed in the common room and what consequences would bear noncompliance - something like cleaning the furniture, mopping the kitchen floor, washing dishes. It was pretty hard to get around these punitive chores his whole time in school, and most didn't make it.

But if this guy wasn't a student, why was he hanging around? Suddenly something clicked in her head, and she had a pretty solid theory about where the stranger might be coming from.

"Hey, Feli," she said, leaning over to nudge Feli on the arm. She broke her spellbound attention from Katie and Maria's conversation, which seemed to throw her off for a moment. Liv pointed behind her at the boy. "Is that the new guy you were supposed to show around?"

Irritated, Feli glanced in that direction, but then turned back around and put her hand over her mouth. "Oh, shit," she opined, and began to giggle in amusement. "Yeah, that's exactly what he is. What's he doing here now?"

"What...?" asked Henriette, who had now also noticed the newcomer, and looked around for him as well. Her eyes widened. "Oh!" she said, turning back to Feli. "Feli, you didn't say he was -" She interrupted herself.

"What?" asked Liv more coolly than she had actually intended, but she tried not to resent Henri's tactlessness quite so much. She didn't mean any harm, after all - she thought people of color were more like an endangered species. Which would definitely piss Liv off more if she would think about it further.

That's why she didn't expect an answer from Henriette.

The boy still stood around a bit perplexed and let his gaze wander around the room. What was his name again?

"Why, he _is_ kind of cute," Katie suddenly said, which made Liv realize that she and Maria had stopped talking. She had tuned them out, so she hadn't even noticed. Liv would have loved to make another snarky comment about Katie's relationship right now, but then thought better of it.

"Oh, yeah?" asked Feli. It was always hard to tell with her whether her cluelessness was feigned or sincere. She had a few admirers - she was pretty as a picture, smart and nice, how could she not? - but she had never jumped at them until now. This, however, was easily explained by how busy she was. She sometimes hardly had time to do anything with the other girls on the weekends, because of all the self-imposed obligations she had to fulfill. She certainly didn't have time for _boys_.

"Well," Katie admitted. "Not exactly my type, but cute in and of itself, right?"

"Who, the brunet there?" asked Maria - Liv liked how she used his hair color alone as a distinguishing feature. It's a wonder the guy hadn't noticed how he was being watched until now. Though, if Liv were in his shoes, she'd pretend not to notice, too. "Why?", Maria wanted to know. "Do either of you have a crush on him?"

"Uh ... No. He's new here. Got to show him around at school. So, yeah - no one special," Feli enlightened them.

The boy - Liv was by now questioning whether Feli had even told them the name - hesitantly entered the room, not avoiding noticing the girls on the couch. If he hadn't already. Feli smiled at him and raised her hand in greeting. Liv knew she was a little uncomfortable with the situation, but she managed to hide her emotions behind the warm glow of her deep blue eyes so believably that it had a calming effect even on those who knew it was all pretense.

The boy smiled as well, stepping indecisively from one leg to the other for a moment and finally a little closer to them.

"Uh ... hi," he said amiably, nodding once around, his gaze lingering on Liv a little longer than on the others.

"Hi, Jonas," Feli repeated, her warm smile remaining contained. Liv found it admirable where Feli got the confidence to address a total stranger directly by name. "Well - that's another way of seeing each other, I suppose."

"Yeah, well," Jonas replied, laughing nervously. He seemed no less uncomfortable with the conversation right now. "Well, I um ... I was just going to get something to eat. Haven't had lunch yet. There should be a kitchen around here somewhere or something, but - did I get lost?"

Feli laughed emphatically, loosening up. "No, no, the kitchen's behind that door there. Just tell Mrs. Nowak what you want, and I'm sure you'll get a roll or something. Don't worry, you'll know the main places around here after a while.”

"Oh." Jonas grimaced. "Okay, thanks, I suppose I'm just a bit blind. Um, I'll see you around, I guess. The classes aren't that big here, from what I've heard. And if we don't have class together after all, we can keep having awkward conversations in the lounge." He gave her a wry grin, turning his gaze for once to Liv, who suddenly felt the need to remove her "nerd glasses," as Katie called them, from her nose. How pathetic she was. She really was instantly attracted to anyone here who showed human decency - or wasn't white. It bordered on obsessive.

A moment of silence fell, during which it looked as if Jonas was about to leave, when suddenly, with a thump, someone else arrived in the common room, and all eyes turned to the entrance.

A girl had come in, tall and lean, probably a senior, with long blond hair. "Probably" was the wrong term here, though. Liv knew who she was. After summer vacation, everyone knew who she was. Eva Grün. The girl who had torched the library in the East Wing - and hadn't been expelled for it for a mere lack of evidence.

But instead of caring about the stares and whispers in which the room was suddenly enveloped, she had fixed precisely on the sofa of the girls she was now approaching. There was something so restless, almost wild, in her bright eyes as she did so, that Liv involuntarily slumped into her chair. She didn't want this girl to come to them now. She really didn't. But it wasn't in her power to decide that.

"Maria, we need to talk for a minute," she said flatly, propping her hands on the table. "Right now, if possible."

Maria seemed speechless for a moment, a moment Katie took advantage of. "Uh, excuse me, but what exactly do you think you're doing here?"

Eva stared past her consistently and raised her eyebrows. "Maria, it's _urgent_."

" _Hey!_ " Katie drew attention to herself in a voice and simultaneously snapped it in front of Eva's face, causing her to look over at her with an irritated blink, as if she hadn't even noticed the others' presence until now. "I'm not invisible, am I?"

"Katie ...", Maria put in weakly - the first thing she had to say about the situation. And Katie knew how to purposefully overhear her.

" _Très bien_ ," was all she said, now that she had gotten Eva's attention. Liv would love to cover her eyes. Nothing good ever came of Katie deliberately starting French just to make an impression. "Because while I think you certainly have a good reason to come crashing into the common room like you just came from a road race to talk to Maria -"

"I-," Eva put in, but Katie bypassed her, "- _so I don't think_ that cannot wait until a few more minutes, because believe it or not, Maria has better things to do right now than listen to your insane little woes, Eva."

Sporadic catty giggles rang out, while Eva's speechlessness slowly turned to annoyance and Maria still said nothing.

Liv squinted over at the others to gauge their reactions. Henriette had fixed her gaze anxiously on Feli, who looked as if she would like to be somewhere else entirely right now. Jonas, contrary to expectations, had not used the situation to make a run for it. Instead, he seemed transfixed by the argument - he had furrowed his brows as if he had to concentrate on a math problem, and seemed to have completely forgotten his original destination here.

"What are you doing, girl?" outraged Eva, clenching her hands into fists. "You have absolutely no idea what this is about!"

Katie had now stood up to be eye level with Eva - at least as much as possible, she was already a bit shorter than her - and elegantly tossed her hair over her shoulder with a cocky look that showed Liv that her sister was once again completely in her element. "You know, Eva," she began in an arrogant, lecturing tone that hardly any more people on Earth could manage like that - except for maybe Miss Klara, "there's hardly anyone here who doesn't know what this is all about, even if you might not be so aware of it right now. What you're doing here is nothing more than making a joke of yourself."

"Katie!", Maria spoke up more forcefully this time.

"Oh yeah?!" hissed Eva, taking a threatening step toward Katie, who didn't even bat an eye. "You think you know? You think you know everything, huh? Because your great-great-grandfather used to be the count of some Swiss backwater, you think you're some kind of crown princess here, don't you, _Katie_?"

"Now maybe you want to disappear, or make a scene until you're transferred directly to the asylum, huh?" The calm voice in which she said it made it sound even more provocative at best. "Face it, Eva, you can't impress me or anyone else here with this, so you'd best leave now and hope everyone here forgets about this by tomorrow. The torched East Library will keep you in the conversation for a while anyway, _chérie_ , don't worry about that." The scattered giggling had by now turned into general laughter. "Use this time to think about yourself for a bit, you might need it."

For a moment Liv was rock-solidly convinced that Eva was going to go off on Katie, but she changed her mind at the very last moment, not least because Mrs. Nowak, with the strong Polish accent she always had when she was upset, shouted from the doorway to the kitchen, "That's enough, girls! You stop this right now or I'll throw you both out!"

Katie raised her eyebrows in challenge, but made no move to move an inch from the spot. Eva, on the other hand, now stood there somewhat indecisively, as if only now realizing that she was the focus of general attention. She gave one last look to Maria, who averted her own, and then marched out of the room. She did so at the same pace at which she had entered, almost running into Mrs. von Kemler, but managing to avoid her at the last moment.

Katie smiled visibly pleased with herself, put her hair back over her shoulders, and took her seat again in one fluid motion. Liv had almost expected her to curtsy at the show's conclusion, but she didn't need to in order to make it clear how much she was enjoying the attention.

Mrs. von Kemler, at any rate, having collected herself somewhat from her near collision, thrust her hands reprovingly into her hips and jutted her chin upward, as she always did when she felt obliged to reprimand a pupil. And judging by the half-irritated expression that had pulled itself into Jonas' face, Liv could guess who she was directing it at, too.

"Jonas, will you _please_ come back now? I _really_ don't have all the time in the world, and it's not a matter of course that you're guaranteed such an introduction, do you understand?"

"I totally understand," Jonas said, nodding with exaggerated eagerness. "I'm not saying I'm not extremely grateful that you're doing the job you're paid to do, Mrs. ... Head Secretary, but I must say you could have been a little more specific about _where_ the kitchen is located here."

"Stop talking and come with me now, Jonas, I beg of you," replied Mrs. von Kemler, turning to leave.

"I still don't have anything to eat," Jonas said, by now not quite so playfully indignant. Mrs. von Kemler, however, was already outside. Jonas sighed briefly. "Capitalism really is everywhere, isn't it?" Liv had no idea who that was directed at, but she inwardly agreed with him.

He looked at the girls again, giving Liv a small smile as he did so - though she might have imagined it - and let his hands slide into his jacket pocket. "I've got to go, then."

"Yeah, bye," Feli was the only one to reply amiably.

Jonas nodded, set off at a strolling pace to follow, and winked at her in conclusion.

For a moment Liv thought her brain had just played tricks on her in this clichéd Hollywood movie moment, but Feli turned away with an expression both amused and caught off guard that gave Liv a strange twinge.

Henriette had apparently caught on, too, because she started giggling excitedly and grabbed her friend by the arm.

"Wow," was all Katie said, and although she tried to hide it, the slight reluctance towards this show stealer could clearly be heard from her voice. "Those were some performances."

"Oh yes," Maria agreed, sounding exhausted. She hadn't been paying any attention to Jonas anyway. Whatever Eva had wanted to say to her - it didn't seem to be out of her mind at the moment. Neither did Liv.

Henri's cheeks, on the other hand, had turned scarlet. "Say, Feli ..." She paused for a moment, then lowered her voice as if what she was about to say next was something particularly reprehensible, "Does he _fancy_ you?"

"Oh, come on." Feli didn't sound very convinced.

"I mean, she's right," Katie suddenly spoke up again. "The way he came over here to us, only talked to you the whole time, the way he winked at you now - the poor boy is blown away, my dear." She smiled spitefully. "Quite sad, actually. They think they can win our Feli over every time."

"And if that doesn't work out, you'll snatch them, eh?", Liv couldn't help but say. She had to admit that she regretted it a bit as soon as she said it. While she meant every word she said, she didn't want to start an argument. Arguments with her sister were incredibly exhausting. She melodramatized every damn sentence that crossed Liv's lips, and Liv couldn't expect any support from Katie's friends - Feli included. It mostly reminded her how unimportant she actually was.

It didn't look like a fight at the moment, though. Instead, Katie just grimaced as if she was definitely considering it. "Well, if they're cute - why not?"

"Which is true for Jonas, huh?" _If you weren't already dating the cockiest guy ever._

Katie looked directly at Liv and smiled. "Him? No. Definitely not."


	7. 1.5

The fact that Jonas didn't get to eat spoiled his mood even more. It even caused it to sink to previously unimagined depths.

Mrs. von Kemler had decided to give Jonas the silent treatment. Not that he would mind - on the contrary. It gave him all the more time to think about what had just happened. This blonde, completely upset girl - Eva she was called - who had wanted to speak so urgently with this Asian girl named Maria. Jonas resented the red-haired Swiss girl for immediately going on the offensive like that. First, there had been no apparent reason to bitch at Eva like that in front of everyone, and second, it meant that she hadn't gotten around to stating her business. It was not only this Eva who had acted strangely, also the reaction of Maria, who clearly knew what was being talked about, but did not want to think about it.

It was none of Jonas' business anyway. But still, he had to admit that he would prefer not to wander through the corridors so completely in the dark now, while it was clear to him that there seemed to be something going on that he had no idea about so far.

Maybe he should try to think about something else. There was at least one more black student here - one more than he had dared to hope for. She was sitting around with the rich, but that was what gave Jonas some hope. Not that he necessarily wanted to mingle with the snobs, but what else would he have to do if he didn't want to remain all alone. This younger girl could become a passable ally here.

After all, she was friends with Feli, who, as Jonas had already noted, was okay. Preferably, Jonas wouldn't think about her now, but now he couldn't stop. Leaving aside the young black girl, he hadn't expected someone who seemed as genuinely nice and empathetic as Feli to be friends with, of all people, the kind of girl who liked to flaunt herself in that argumentative, overdramatic way. The kind of girl whose friendships were built on nothing backstabbing each other. So, it could be that he just did this Katie-girl a great injustice and she was just having a bad day or had a bad relationship with Eva, but he thought he had seen this kind of girl a few times before. She thought she was something here, but really she was just projecting her own self-doubt onto others. Really boring. Really uncool. Really been-there-done-that. He'd love to talk to Eva when she was alone. She didn't seem to have a stick up her ass, which he genuinely liked.

Still. He wouldn't have winked at her - or Katie - in a fit of unwarranted self-confidence as he left, like some dream-boy quarterback from a 2000s Disney high school drama. While Jonas could imagine himself conforming to one of those stereotypes - however, that certainly wasn’t it. Perhaps he would be the quirky math geek who used sarcasm as a defense mechanism. Or the best friend of the main protagonist who said maybe two sentences and had been added for diversity. Wait, what had he just thought of?

Ah yes. Anyway, he, Jonas Hager, was definitely not in the position where you could just wink at the first pretty girl in a new school just because she had shown him said school before. Whereas Feli was more than just pretty. She had more of a Greek goddess -

 _Wow, what the hell was wrong with him today_ , Jonas thought to himself in shame. Hard to believe he was actually supposed to be out of the girls-are-dumb phase. That was a nice phase. Why would anyone leave that voluntarily? And then also for girls who came from a completely different world than he did.

While Jonas was thinking, he hadn't even noticed that Mrs. von Kemler had left the school building, and so had he, since he was on her heels after all. At first he wondered why there was no direct connection to the dormitories, since late at night in the wintry darkness it could sometimes be really inconvenient to have to wander across the schoolyard to get to his room. But then his eyes fell again on the charred, burned-out spot at the end of the protruding stairwell on the right, and on the connecting tunnel, which was also blackened at the edge, and he spared himself the question.

Something about this was weird. Definitely weird. Part of the school had burned. Had been completely burned out. The whole library was no longer usable. And this was ... an exceptional technical error? So either this ultra-modern elitist school was really bad in terms of fire safety - which would be nothing new in Berlin - or something had happened here that had the potential to cause bad publicity. And that would be even worse than lousy fire protection. This realization made Jonas think back to the argument from earlier. The fire had been mentioned. What else had that Katie's wording been? _The torched East Library will keep you in the conversation for a while._ Boy, how obvious did it get?

"Mrs. von Kemler?" said Jonas, quickening his steps a bit to catch up with her again. Mrs. Sulking-Right-Now didn't respond until about the third attempt at direct address. "The fire wasn't really a blown socket, was it?"

The head clerk gave Jonas a sidelong glance, but her expression still held neutral. If anything, he stiffened just a bit - if that had still been possible. "What else could it have been, Jonas?"

He tried to cover the fact that he didn't like the way she called him by name so often, as if they had known each other for more than about an hour. He shrugged innocently. "I don't know. It could have been - a student? By accident, I mean, of course," he added, trying not to make it sound like an accusation.

Mrs. von Cameroon was not so casual about the matter. She sparkled at him from the side, as if he had just insulted her entire family. Since she didn't seem like she had much of that outside of this school either, so that could be quite possible. Except Jonas didn't feel like he had offended anyone.

"Jonas, maybe in the future you should spend less time thinking about things that are none of your business and instead focus on what needs to be focused on," she said coolly.

Jonas didn't even need to unravel the sentence in his head to realize that was supposed to mean something like this: _So what, fuck_ _off_ _, kid._ Still, that fit his idea of a win. Maybe it had been a student who had set the school on fire. Maybe it had been an accident. Maybe neither. In any case, it had nothing to do with the electricity here. And that was something tangible at last.

The houses that had the dorms in them were much larger on the inside than they had appeared from the outside. That was true of everything on this property, even though it made an enormous impression from the outside as well. Amazing what rich people could spend their money on.

The corridors here were fortunately less convoluted, but relatively straight, with staircases at the ends. As well as an elevator, which, however, had a lock. A pity, but understandable. At least Jonas knew he'd be able to find his way back out without help, even if he was hopelessly lost somewhere in the school building starting tomorrow and starving on his quest back to the kitchen. That is, if he didn't do that tonight.

There were also far fewer students than he had expected, assuming the school was attended by more than 100 students total. Every now and then some came to meet them, all in the formal dark blue school uniforms that the students in the common room had also been wearing, and he also had no way of knowing how many rooms were still empty and which ones were already occupied again, but overall everything seemed somewhat empty. Possibly, though, that was just an effect of the excessive size of the buildings.

Finally, a few stairs and curious glances later, Mrs. von Kemler came to a sudden halt in the middle of the hallway, so that Jonas, lost in thought, almost ran into her, and turned to look directly at him. "You'll be staying in room 303. To specify that you're talking about the rooms on the east side where the boys' bedrooms are, you can say O303."

"Okay," Jonas said as he had already half pushed the information back out of his consciousness.

She didn't seem to care whether he had paid attention to her or not. Instead, she reached into the pocket of her severe jacket and pulled out something jingling, silver-gray, which Jonas identified as a key. He wondered how many of them she carried around in her pockets. There couldn't be that many if she could pull out the right one right away. Mrs. Head Secretary extended her arm, so Jonas finally reached for the key, and looked at it. The silver plating was already wearing away at the teeth. At its end was a ring that could be used to attach the key to pendants.

"This is your key. If you lose it, you are required to report it to the office immediately. However, I advise you not to let this happen too often, understand?" She didn't seem to be waiting for an answer. "Then everything is settled now. You have all your things together?"

"Uh. Yes," Jonas assured her, glancing at the bags he was carrying. He would have noticed if there was anything missing.

"Very well. Then show up for dinner at six o'clock tonight. Curfew is at ten, after which you are to be in your room. Tomorrow at six thirty there will be breakfast. If in doubt, have your roommates show you the way."

And with that, she turned to leave, so quickly that Jonas barely got a chance to react. "Wait a minute!" he shouted. "That's it? With that, you're going to leave me to my own devices or what? What about ... what about my dad, does he know where to find me now too, and what do I do if I have any more questions or anything?"

"Jonas, you're sixteen years old, right?" Not quite yet, but that was probably another rhetorical question. "You'll definitely know how to help yourself from now on. If you have any questions, you know where to find me, or just ask one of your classmates, that shouldn't be a problem either. And your father," her expression actually softened for a split second, "had to leave on short notice. I'm sorry. He probably didn't find the time to look for you to let you know in person."

This time she really pulled away, leaving Jonas standing there. "Oh," he said, though more to himself. "All right …"


	8. 1.6

After Jonas disappeared, the mood was no longer the same. And that was not because of him, but rather because of Eva. Liv had not been particularly involved before, but she noticed that the conversation between Maria and Katie had stiffened. Katie tried hard to cover it up, but Liv would be surprised if she didn't also notice how absent Maria was. She kept casting glances in the direction of the exit and, if anything, only gave monosyllabic answers, so Katie finally lost interest in her monologue as well, and leaned back in her chair with her arms folded.

"Well, then it's settled," she finally said, bringing just about everyone else straight back from their dream world. Liv included. She had, however, immediately forgotten what she had just been thinking about. It had definitely had something to do with Eva, though. "I'll meet you in the info room tomorrow at lunch, okay?"

"Um, yeah, that was the plan, I guess," Maria agreed less than euphorically.

Katie pursed her lips a bit sullenly, but then - once again - significantly tossed her hair back and got gracefully to her feet.

"Then my personal business here would be done. Is anyone coming with me to the library?"

"What are we going there for?" asked Henriette with her typical soft, somewhat frantic tone that always gave her a bit of uncertainty.

Katie just raised her shoulders. "There's another book I could use. And you guys don't really have anything better to do, do you? I mean, if you do, you don't have any obligation -"

"No, no, library sounds good," Feli said quickly, before any of the others could interrupt her. That was pretty clever of her, because Liv had been about to retort something snarky. Something that wasn't really necessary right now.

Katie looked a bit irritated at being interrupted for a moment, but then just nodded.

Katie smiled nicely at Maria once more, and then disappeared outside. "No - wait," Maria then remembered, though, and rose from the sofa as well. "I have ... something to do, too, so I'll just come with you guys."

"Sure thing," Katie said, nodding and directing them to follow her. "You guys coming now?"

This time Liv couldn't think of anything about her sister to get upset about. However, she was also a little distracted. She realized that what Maria was going to do next could only be what Eva had been talking about. And if Liv was clever about it, she might even learn something.

Because she was sure that it was about the party. The party of the twelfth graders before the vacations. The one where all this had happened. All the stuff the school didn't want anyone else to know about - for good reason, probably, and yet it didn't sit well with Liv that she had so little idea. She knew the school had burned. She knew that Eva Grün was blamed for it - unofficially. And that someone had drowned. But no one was talking about it. So Liv had to find out on her own. Without Katie. Without anyone at all. Alone.

So when Maria said goodbye, Liv took her chance. "I have to go to the bathroom again. You guys go ahead," she announced to the others, already halfway moving.

"I don't think we would have waited until you were done before we went to the library, Livvy," Katie had to put a damper on her, of course.

Instead of letting her mood be spoiled, Liv tried to take Katie's arrogant behavior as an incentive.

That's why she stifled any kind of remark, turned and hurried off, not wanting to lose Maria too far out of sight, while feeling her sister's deprecating glances at her back and letting them wing her feet.

Maria turned left into the next corridor. Fortunately, that was actually the way to the restroom. Maybe Maria had to use it. If so, Liv would have to hide and wait for her, but there was no way she was going to be stopped. She was sure that the thing with Eva was not one of her "crazes," as Katie would put it - very much so. It was obvious. If Katie would just once take more interest in what others were thinking and feeling at a moment's notice, she too would realize how obvious it was. Too bad for her.

The hallways were slowly but surely filling up with people again. Teachers and students were coming back from vacation, some motivated to start the new year, others rather less so. By 6 p.m., everyone would be back here. That was something like the boundary line. From then on, you needed a written excuse not to be present at school. That this also meant that students like Rosie Walther, now an eleventh-grader, would then be back was something Liv neatly repressed. At least for now, when she didn't have to worry about it. Katie's clique had worked just fine without Rosie. Katie gave the orders and the others complied. One member more or less didn't matter there.

Now, however, Liv had to concentrate on what Maria was doing. That wasn't much at first. She walked down the hallway quite unobtrusively, purposeful but not hurried enough not to say hello to a few friends who crossed her path. However, her smile was strained, her movements stiff. Actually, she was in a hurry. She just didn't want to let it show.

Liv mingled with the others. Sometimes she changed direction for a short time, moving away when she thought Maria was looking at her. Sometimes she hid behind open doors, or even went into the classrooms. She certainly followed Maria once through the whole school building like a secret agent on a mission. Only what was her mission? "Find out what happened at that party you weren't interested in"? "Prove that you don't need your sister all the time and for everything in your life"? Something like that. It didn't matter much to the nation. Although - that was yet to be seen.

Finally, when she had been running for minutes, going up and down stairs, changing corridors to the right and to the left - either Maria didn't know where she was actually going, or she sensed that she was being followed and tried diversionary maneuvers - Maria ran right into Eva, and so suddenly that Liv almost stumbled from surprise.

Quick as a flash, she looked around for a means of camouflage and finally squeezed behind one of the protruding half-columns on the wall that demarcated parts of the corridor.

"There you are!" she heard Eva say behind her. Her tone evidenced a mixture between relieved and unnerved. Liv could imagine where that was coming from. "Finally. Actually, I thought I could have talked to you half an hour ago, but were you still hanging out with those tenth-grader bitches."

"Yeah - all right," Maria said placatingly, but there was a certain tension in her words that couldn't be ignored. "But I'm here now, right? Okay? So, what's so urgent?"

"What do you think?"

Liv hadn't expected that, but she waited for Maria's answer anyway. Her theory was confirmed, at least. Maria had an inkling of what was coming.

"Seriously, Eva?" hissed Maria, lowering her voice all at once, to the point that Liv had to listen pretty closely to understand anything else. If Maria wasn't so upset during the whisper, her words would probably be completely lost. "Let it go. If this is what I think it's about, just let it go, will you? And most of all, leave me alone with it."

"Leave you alone with it?" repeated Eva at a normal volume, and though Liv couldn't see it, she was sure Maria winced from it - she almost felt that way herself. "Oh, right. Because you're so innocent. Because you're so _innocent_ while being dragged into shit by others all the time, that's why I'm supposed to leave you alone now, right?" What she said sounded like something people would throw at each other during a loud argument, but she said it calmly and casually, as if in an ordinary conversation.

"I didn't say that," Maria defended herself. She tried to imitate Eva's tone, but there was a quiet tremor mixed in. Meanwhile, Liv wondered if she was just nervous, or if it was genuine fear that was steadily resonating there in her voice. She was probably overdramatizing the whole thing again. To make it more interesting for herself to spy on other people she hardly knew. Still, that didn't stop her from continuing unperturbed.

"Of course you didn't. However, you couldn't have meant it any other way, could you?" For a moment, both girls were silent. Students came running by. Most of them were not interested in what was going on. They had their own agendas. A few curious glances were cast in Liv's direction, who was still huddled behind the half-column. She tried to make them understand with her eyes that she was on a secret operation and they should please fuck off.

"I've been thinking," Eva finally continued thoughtfully. She was also speaking softly by now, but not whispering. Liv resisted the urge to hold her breath so as not to let Eva's words be drowned out by her own breathing noises. "About everything, I mean. And I've come to a decision, and for that I need your -"

" _Eva!_ "

A few short footsteps were heard. A door opened. Liv was still waiting for the clack with which it was closed again - but it didn’t happen. Cautiously, she dared to take a peek out from her hiding place. Eva and Maria had disappeared into a classroom, but they had only leaned against the door. That was fantastic. That was outstanding. They couldn't have done better - well, for Liv at least.

She tiptoed up to the open crack of the door and leaned against it just enough to feel a light cool breeze against her cheek.

"What, Eva?!", Liv heard Maria immediately flare up. She was no longer trying to keep her voice calm - she was clearly letting it show how frustrated she was. "What the hell are you going to decide here now? Twist? Complicate? _What?_ "

"It's about the money," Eva said.

Maria didn't seem to have expected that, because she remained silent. Money? Wasn't Eva Grün a scholarship student?

" _Money?_ " asked Maria, too. When she said it, though, it sounded less astonished. It sounded much more shocked. "Money, Eva? Are you serious? Valentin is dead and you still want _money_?"

"Hello, Liv."

Liv was so startled that she almost accidentally pushed open the door as she whirled around. She felt something icy run down her marrow, the words echoing in her head. _Valentin is dead._ Valentin who drowned at the party. _Valentin is dead and you want money?_

It was only when footsteps approached the door behind her and it finally slammed shut with the clack that had failed to appear before that Liv's vision tightened again and she was able to perceive who was actually standing there in front of her. When she did, she wished she had run away immediately.

"What are you doing here?" hissed Liv, immediately realizing what a stupid question it was. She just needed a way to express her displeasure at the moment.

"I'm going to school here, hold on," her counterpart replied exactly as sarcastically as she had anticipated. It just struck her how strange it was that she hadn't seen him for most of the vacations. After all, he was Katie's boyfriend. Possibly neither of them cared so much about that fact when it wasn't exactly about impressing others. What else the two of them did together was none of Liv's business. Or at least she didn't want it to be any of her business, because the idea of her sister having sex was pretty disturbing.

"So what do you want from me now, Cyrian?" she went straight on the offensive, trying to sound as calm as possible. This guy was one not to show fear of - in that case, he was a lot like Katie. They had influence because they were manipulative. Whereas in Cyrian's case, that was only a helpful circumstance rather than the reason why the students were afraid of him.

Cyrian raised his hands defensively. "Why do I always have to want something from you?" he asked innocently, but didn't think it necessary to wipe the mocking, sardonic grin off his face in return. "Can't I just say hi to my girlfriend's sister when I catch her in the hallway spying on people?"

Liv felt her cheeks grow hot, and she gritted her teeth in shame. She knew she couldn't avert her eyes, or she'd be admitting defeat - though it was clear that Cyrian had once again gotten what he wanted.

"Whatever," Liv muttered, since she at least still had enough brains to know that playing dumb would only do him another favor. "You've got that now, don't you? Can't you disappear again now?"

"Disappear to where? I've got time." Cyrian looked like he was having quite a bit of fun right now. Probably that was why he still gave a shit about Liv - he was having a bad day and wanted to cheer up a bit. By making fun of others. "So, who are you stalking here?"

Automatically, Liv's eyes wandered over to the door behind which Maria and Eva were just continuing their conversation at that moment, and Liv couldn't hear any of it. While this was quite frustrating, somehow, inside of her, Liv also felt relief at this. She would have heard things she definitely shouldn't have - or didn't want to. That was cowardly of her. But for that moment right now, she hoped she'd never have to hear any of it from now on - that Eva and Maria could handle this thing, whatever it was, themselves, no matter what.

"No one," Liv said. Pretty pathetic, but there was still the tiny chance that she was just too boring for Cyrian to take any further pleasure in mocking her.

"No one?" the latter repeated in a tone that instantly chided Liv's hopes as naïve. "Oh yeah, I see. Figured you just liked cuddling with doors." He snorted in amusement. Then his expression changed, softened as if he were talking to a small child - the nasty glint in his eyes that seemed to darken them by three shades of brown at the same time, like a shadow, gave away pretty clearly that he was still just making fun of this, though. Liv knew him that well by now. "Come on, Livvy. I think I can take it. You know, I was your age once, too."

Liv wasn't sure she really wanted to know what he was implying.

"There's -" she put in, but faltered herself when she realized how pathetic she sounded. "It's none of your business."

"None of my business?"

This constant repeating of her words was a really annoying way of provocation. Sure that was the point behind it, but Liv absolutely hated it when people thought they were so much better that they could ridicule her every word.

"Honey, if it's happening behind a closed door and you have to contort yourself to catch anything anyway, I'm wondering if it's any of _your_ business."

Touché. Except it wasn't in Liv's concern to admit that to herself either. That's why she said, "And I wonder how long you've been standing here, because you seem to have picked up on a lot."

"Livvy," Cyrian began quietly and clearly, in typical toddler language. It was bad enough that he'd picked it up from Katie to call her "Livvy" at all - no, of course it had to be even more emphatically condescending. "Like I said, I personally don't think it's any of your business whatever you were eavesdropping on. But you will hopefully learn that for yourself soon enough, so I'm not just going to open the door and tell these people that their privacy has been violated, okay? Well, I don't know if you really overheard a conversation, and I'm not going to ask more because, as I said, I was already your age. Although listening to someone jerk off is a little perverse, but that's for another time."

Liv noticed that she had felt a lot better just two seconds before.

"So - are you just going to let it go in the future? Then I won't tell anyone about this either."

"Not even Katie?" it slipped out of Liv's mouth. Even as she said it, she could have bitten her tongue so hard for it that it bled.

Cyrian, though, had already recognized his victory, and his catty grin returned. "I don't know. Aren't relationships built on honesty and trust or something?" He pretended to consider, blowing a white strand out of his face. Nope, sorry. _Platinum blond._

"Nope, don't think so," Cyrian finally said, and Liv had to admit that a small weight fell from her heart. A big one, actually. Of course, relying on Cyrian's word was a gamble, but she really wanted to avoid Katie knowing of her secret mission. "I mean, what kind of example would that be - promising something and then making direct exceptions. I already told you, you'll get away with it this time, kiddo. Don't worry."

Maybe Liv should say thank you. Of course, Cyrian was just taking advantage of the situation to make her squirm a bit. Of course, he was only doing this because he was an asshole - in truth, he didn't give a shit what Liv did, as long as it didn't affect him. But he was right - theoretically he could have just opened the door and told Liv off. Liv's pride had something to say about it, though.

"I don't need your stupid example," she accused him. That was a brave thing to say at that moment, but she couldn't bring herself to say anything else either. He had irritated her too much.

"We'll see," Cyrian said with only a shrug of his shoulders and began to stroll away toward his path as if nothing had happened. "Nice braids, by the way. Suits you better than open hair."

As he moved away, Liv was speechless. She knew, after all, that her sister admittedly had a knack for the complete idiots. Only Cyrian was something of a male, meaner version of her.

_"Suits you better than open hair," boy, if you're going to judge afro hair, you should try yourself first_ , Liv thought angrily.

Behind that anger, however, an echo crept back into Liv's thoughts. _Valentin is dead and you want money._ Her eyes slid to the closed door, which suddenly opened as if on cue, and Eva stepped out, looking like a startled rabbit when she saw Liv. She said nothing and hurried away. Shortly thereafter, Maria also appeared. Her eyes were shining tiredly, and her anxious tension seemed to have turned into pure exhaustion. Not knowing what else to do, Liv smiled weakly.

"The school year," Maria said so unexpectedly that Liv felt like she was being snapped out of a daydream, "is just getting started right, huh?"

She could agree with her on that wholeheartedly.


	9. 1.7

Jonas stood there for at least five minutes, knowing that his father had made off and left him alone in this strange giant school without having thought it necessary to say goodbye to him. It wasn't even as if he was in a particular hurry. It was Sunday. _He would have found the time._

Whatever. _Whatever_ _._ Now he had to get settled in his new room, which, to make matters worse, he shared with a bunch of strange guys who could all either be okay - or not. And Jonas had absolutely no influence on that. Only - what was he supposed to do now? He had been handed a key by Mrs. von Kemler. But the door had a handle from the outside and it was unlikely that it would be locked in the middle of the day. If his new roommates were there, that is. Jonas pursed his lips. He shouldn't get the false hope that none of his roommates would have bothered to come to school so close to the start of the school year. Still, he couldn't help but imagine how much more pleasant it would be if now, when he knocked on the door, no one would speak up and he could look at the room in peace and alone.

Yes, knocking was what he should do. Even if someone was inside, they should at least be warned. And if not, then all the better.

"Come in?", Jonas heard a voice call from inside with a slightly mocking undertone, to which someone else laughed, and he would have preferred to turn around and run outside again on the spot. He had a problem with new people, but most of all he had a problem with being laughed at by said new people while there was still a closed door between them. And that was for knocking. He had to get used to the humor here.

Shortly thereafter, he opened the door - which, as he had correctly guessed, had been open all along - and expected to be met with another wave of laughter for his comedic performance, but the guys in the room probably found it less funny than the knocking. Suddenly he was being stared at from all sides. A rather long-set guy with a typical half-long tangled skater hairstyle was lying on the bottom of a double bunk bed, he had taken off his jacket and hung it on the edge of the bed, but still had his shoes on. He only glanced at Jonas, chuckled a little to himself, and then turned his attention back to the underside of the upper bed, which he seemed to have been watching before.

Except for him, there were three other boys present in the room. Two, blond and brunette, were sitting at a round table at the other end of the room, working on their laptops, from which they now looked up to gape at him as if he were an alien.

The third and final boy sat on the top of the double bed by the skater guy with a laptop on his lap and was the only one who actually seemed friendly. He was probably one of those guys who actually looked really good, but either intentionally or unintentionally actively worked against it. With his unkempt, shoulder-length hair and his somewhat hunched, casual sitting position, he immediately seemed like the chillest one in this group. When he smiled at Jonas in a friendly manner, the latter decided right then and there that he liked him.

"Hey," Jonas said a little cautiously to break the silence.

"Hey" and "Hi" came back a bit questioningly, the guy in the bed just kept laughing to himself. He had probably already taken his drugs as a precaution. After all, it was the last day of vacation, so you couldn't blame him.

"Hi," said the long-haired guy, who was still the only one with a relatively friendly expression on his face. Shortly after, he put the laptop aside, jumped down from the bed surprisingly casually and stood in the middle of the room. He was much taller than he had appeared sitting down - he towered over Jonas by a good half a head. "You're the new guy, right?" he asked, narrowing his eyes in a jokingly scrutinizing manner.

"Um, yeah," the latter replied, and in the next second tried to elegantly set his suitcase down so he could reach out to his only friendly roommate. Eventually the suitcase fell over, however Jonas simply pretended not to notice.

The long-haired boy snorted in amusement and chimed in at him, which wasn't quite what Jonas had expected, but he wasn't going to complain either. "Cool, I'm Alex. This here is Konstantin," he pointed at the skater guy in the bed as he did so, then to the boys at the table, "and doing their last-minute work there are Peter and Luis Freier. I mean, not related - the last name can be quite helpful, because we have 'Luis' seven times in this year. Which is amazing because we're about thirty-seven students in this cohort. So, thirty-eight, if I'm correct in my assumption that you're going into tenth now, too."

"Uh, yeah, that's right," Jonas said as he unobtrusively set his suitcase back down. "I'm Jonas."

Luis Freier, the blond with the blue, backwards cap, looked up at the two and raised his finger. "We've got Jonas twice, though. Aren't many per grade, but it's still a big school. So no reason to think you're special."

"Oh," Jonas went on, feeling more stupid with every damn word, "I mean, I didn't even -"

"Relax, newbie," the skater guy - Konstantin, which was a name that so didn't suit him, Jonas thought - said from the side, still highly amused, of course. "Then maybe you won't be quite so easily fooled, either."

"Well," Alex continued talking now, "we actually have one bed left here, and it's an upper one, because who wants to break everything at night during a hot dream. That means the honor of full risk is yours." He seemed to want to sound serious, but grinned treacherously as he did so. "So unless we're going to have a wild swap, you're going to lay above Peter. No, shit, I could have phrased that differently -"

Luis had burst out laughing, and even the bespectacled brunet, Peter, laughed somewhat embarrassedly. "Grow up, kids," Konstantin commented half-heartedly. He had his hands clasped behind his head and his eyes closed. Apparently, he had already fully disengaged.

"I feel a little sorry for you already," Luis said with a curt gesture at Peter. "He snores terribly at night."

They discussed a little more, while Jonas preferred to look at the beds first. Actually, he had hoped not to have to sleep in one of the upper ones, but in the end he took what he could get. There were three double beds in the room. That meant a total of six sleeping spaces - grade school math. What he'd completely disregarded until now was that there was only one free spot, which meant five were already taken. For some reason, it had taken his brain a bit to realize that meant one of his future roommates wasn't even in the room right now.

"And who's the one left here?" he asked in the middle of the discussion.

Alex's smile suddenly took on a strange hue. It wasn't as if he stopped smiling, however, it turned into a sort of sarcastic half-grin. "Who’s left? Our good ice prince, of course."

"'Scuse me," came it suddenly from the door, whereupon Jonas whirled around and for a moment considered jumping out of the nearest window. "Are you talking about me?"

"What's Draco Malfoy doing here?" muttered Jonas a little louder than he had originally planned. Alex laughed out loud, Peter and Luis whinnied away, and Konstantin snorted in amusement.

The white-haired boy leaning in the doorway looked at him, unimpressed, but Jonas imagined that the corner of his mouth twitched briefly. "Do we know each other?"

"Not ... really," Jonas said, not buying that he'd really forgotten about their run-in right away. "You ran into me in the hallway."

"Indeed." That was all Draco had to say about that. Alex had gone quiet in the meantime, Peter and Luis as well, and Konstantin wasn't really concerned with this whole thing anyway, as he himself had decided.

"And ...", Jonas finally tried to resume the conversation. "If your name isn't Draco Malfoy, what is it?"

At first it looked as if Draco would have no reaction to that at all. Until, out of the blue, the corners of his mouth twisted into a sarcastic grin. Different from Alex's earlier, though. Less amused, more condescending. "Cyrian Waack. It's an honor, newbie."

With that, he walked straight past Jonas, patted him on the shoulder, and didn't dignify him with another glance after that.

It was amazing that it was only after he thought about it that Jonas realized he had never heard the name _Kü-ri-jan_. "Wait, so Waack, like -"

"Exactly like," Alex answered for him, rolling his eyes. "Just don't ask."

"No, no, that makes sense," Jonas talked on, unperturbed. "That's why you told me to watch who I talk to -"

"Or just shut up completely for five minutes, which would be the easier solution for all of us," Draco - no, wrong, _Cyrian_ \- interrupted him as the expression on his face had gone from sarcasm to derision. "Trust me, Jonas," Jonas couldn't remember introducing himself to him, "you can't tell me anything I don't already know. You're not interesting. No need to expand on that."

Well, that was a ray of hope.


	10. 1.8

"It's pretty sick that they're just going through their routine like normal now, with all the shit that's been going on," Rosie said as, looking at herself in the hand mirror, she touched up her eye shadow. She had barely put the mirror down this evening. She cared a lot about how she looked and appeared to others, but she liked looking at herself in it just as much. "I think they could at least give us a few more days to recover. Or leave out stressful subjects. Like math."

"We've had all summer vacation to recover, Rosalie," Emma said coolly from her loft bed, not looking down at the others. She and Rosie had arrived back pretty close behind each other sometime half past five. And with them, all the rest of the school. With the hallways never empty, the incessant side conversations overheard wherever you went, and the smell of coffee returning to the lounges and cafeteria now that teachers were once again sitting there between their classes, the school year had officially begun again. Even before Mrs. Waack could have actually given her commencement speech, which always varied by a few words from year to year, but basically said one and the same thing. Maybe it would actually be different this year. Because Rosie was right - something had happened. Something that could not be ignored. And that seemed to get stranger with each passing day.

"It's more of a miracle that all the parents didn't immediately pull their kids out of school and have them officially homeschooled," Emma continued, snorting sarcastically. She thought nothing of the concept of being able to be sent to private schools with proper payment. Pretty ridiculous, in Katie's opinion. Emma didn't understand that private schools weren't about teaching students who would get the best graduation records - but those who had the best chance of making it big.

"I think it's just clear to everyone that nothing actually happened that you need to make an unnecessary drama out of. Of course it sounds like crap. The school was on fire. Somebody drowned in the pool. But honestly, it was a freaking accident."

When Emma then just laughed quietly to herself again, Katie added pointedly, "If the school burned down because of some chemistry experiment gone wrong, everyone would be able to explain that right away, too, wouldn't they."

Emma seemed to find that less funny. Katie couldn't see it, but she still knew Emma was rolling her eyes right now. She stifled a grin. Oh well, it was fun to make people roll their eyes every time they knew Katie had rightfully earned the last word.

"Well, still," Rosie said piqued, tossing her wavy blonde hair over her shoulder. It was something she'd picked up from Katie - like a lot of things. If they didn't both know Rosie would never stand up to Katie, it would bother her more, but that way she didn't care. Rosie liked the attention, which Katie could understand, except that she lacked creativity. Or maybe a personality to start with. This time she couldn't stop the corners of her mouth from going up.

"You just don't feel like going to class," Feli claimed. She was also lying in her bed, holding a book in her hands that she had already read about four times during the vacations. So either she found this compilation of countless Schiller ballads really intoxicating, or she hadn't understood most of it until now. Katie wondered anyway who would voluntarily do such a thing to themselves. That was true of anything Feli called her free time.

Katie didn't wait to hear what Rosie would say in response. In the end, it would have just come to another unnecessary argument anyway, because Rosie said something insensitive and Feli resented it. Rosie was a master at insensitive comments, you had to give her that. Especially to girls she thought were prettier than herself. Which was really nonsense. As if being mean would change anything about the fact that Feli was prettier than she was. Feli was prettier than all the other girls at school. Rosie had to come to terms with that.

"Anyway," Katie drew attention back to herself. "I'm leaving again now."

"What, now?" asked Henriette, startled. "But isn't it curfew soon?"

Katie sighed theatrically, though she was amused at how much her friend always worried. "It's not for another two hours, though, Henri. It won't take me that long, okay?"

Rosie looked up from her mirror and grinned. "It might just turn out rather unsatisfactory if you want to get it a last time before the school year starts."

Henriette's face took on an unhealthy hue mixture between white and green. "What?" she asked, horrified. "You want to... with... so right now..."

Katie couldn't help but roll her eyes in exaggeration. Possibly she could do it less exaggeratedly, sure, but where was the fun in that? She had developed the concept of making all her moves seem as if they had been perfectly planned. That made an impression.

"No, I'm not planning on having sex right now," she clarified in an irritated tone. "Thank you for your concern, though, Rosie."

"You’re more than welcome," the latter just replied, but Katie was already no longer interested, because she wanted to waste as little time as possible to still catch the person she had to go see.

Cyrian, however, wasn’t it.


	11. 1.9

Jonas decided to leave the room just before curfew and go exploring. He needed time to himself, or he really would have jumped out the window. Too much had happened for him to just let it go.

What a walk through the strange, huge school hallways couldn't help, however, was that crushing feeling in the pit of his stomach that he had to actively suppress to keep it from going to his head. He had rarely felt as alone as he did at that moment. Even though he hadn't gotten along with his father all that well, especially lately, he had always been there until now. No matter who or what came and went in their lives, they were the only family they had left for each other after Jonas' mother died.

And now he had just left Jonas too. Without even saying goodbye. As if he left Jonas to his fate and wanted nothing more to do with it. And that among a bunch of strangers, most of whom didn't even recognize Jonas as a full citizen.

His exploratory tour quickly turned into an aimless, lost-in-thoughts wandering through the streets, so that Jonas finally didn't know how to get back to the dorms. He found a staircase after another five minutes, and the way out of the building after a total of fifteen minutes. Quite possibly he was past curfew by then, but the worst that could happen to him would be to get kicked out.

Which led him to make an extra effort not to hurry.

It just wouldn't be bad to know exactly where he was, because it defiantly wouldn't be that fun to have to sleep that night right next to a building in the backyard. At the very least, he strongly assumed he was in the backyard because he had a hard time imagining that the school actually had a mile-long schoolyard. On the other hand, it could just as well be that he really had walked miles. He had broken the concept of time in between.

Finally, in the now-dawning light of the setting sun, he noticed a figure leaning against the wall of the building, puffs smoking from their cigarette rising into the evening air. Jonas was at first undecided whether he should actually approach them or perhaps rather go back into the building before he couldn't even find his way back to the front door, then he took a closer look at the strange person. If he wasn't mistaken, it hadn't been too long since he had last seen this tall girl with the unkempt, light blond hair. In the common room, she didn't yet have that neutral, distant expression on her face - it had been the opposite - but she was unmistakable nonetheless.

What was her name again? Ella? Eva? Eva, that's right. Eva, who had wanted something from Maria*. How ironic.

Before he had a chance to think of anything meaningful to say to her now, she noticed he was there, too, and looked over at him in as expressionless a way as she had been staring off into the distance. "What are you doing here?" she asked flatly.

Jonas thought for a moment. "I just want to get back to the dorms, actually."

"Then you're on the wrong side of the school building."

"Oh, I see," Jonas said. At least now he knew he had only ended up in the backyard after all. Then I guess he would have to go back to his new room. To his new roommates. Now that it was back in the realm of possibility, he was less keen.

Eva misinterpreted Jonas' hesitation and raised her eyebrows. "Want something else?" She held out her pack of cigarettes to him. "One of those, maybe?"

"Uh, no thanks," he said, whereupon Eva put the pack back in the pocket of her jacket with a shrug. "Didn't think rich people were satisfied with such cheap cigarettes," it slipped out before he even realized he'd said it out loud.

Eva looked over at him and he instinctively held his breath, waiting for her to react negatively to him in some way, but she just snorted in amusement. "They probably aren't," she said, "but those are just fine for me."

Jonas let that sink in for a moment. Of course, he shouldn't have been surprised, but he hadn't factored in that he wasn't the only scholarship student at this school. The fact that he was meeting another one right away today was only all the more advantageous for him, even if he wasn't sure yet whether Eva would make the best first friendship here. After all, if he had understood correctly, she had pyromaniac tendencies.

"Don’t you have to go back to your dorms, too?" asked Jonas. It was perhaps a bit pointless, but he still tried to start a conversation. Perhaps he was so lacking in human communication by now that he clung to any stalk that was held out to him.

Besides, he didn't know when he'd next be able to talk to Eva alone, and the thirteen-year-old Sherlock Holmes fan in him wanted to know what this ominous fire was all about before no one talked about it anymore.

"If I go around the outside, no one will notice I'm late," Eva said without looking at him.

Jonas nodded in understanding, though he really had no idea what she meant. "Does that mean you can also ... go around the inside?"

"The dormitory houses are connected to the main building by a bridge. You just can't get to it right now because it's right next to the library, and the hallway in front of it took quite a beating from the fire, too."

Jonas' heart leapt. That went much better than he had expected. Actually, he hadn't expected anything at all, so this was definitely a sign from God. If there was one. Otherwise, it was just fate, and he could work with that, too.

If he knew how. This wasn't God-given to him after all.

"I can imagine," he said, trying not to let the subject sink in, and lapsed into an awkward silence.

This problem, too, magically solved itself. "What?" asked Eva, definitely sounding annoyed now. "You think _I_ torched the library?"

"Well, I - I didn't say anything," Jonas defended himself, a little caught off guard, while a toneless "yes" buzzed around in the back of his head.

Eva rolled her eyes. "Of course you do. But you know what, I might not blame you either - when you're new, you always believe everything you're told anyway."

"I haven't been told anything yet," Jonas said truthfully. Hardly a word had been exchanged with him unless it had been absolutely necessary. Which was fine with him just like that, but at the same time he wanted attention.

Eva took another drag from her cigarette and let its smoke steam up into the increasingly cool evening air. "So you just saw the completely roasted east wing and thought it was for aesthetics, or what?"

"Okay, fine, I was told it was an exceptional technical error or something. I just didn't count that in." He raised his shoulders. "Seemed implausible to me."

Eva hummed in agreement. "So you're one who doubts everything right away. Not bad either. Definitely better than believing any bullshit."

"So what actually happened?" echoed Jonas before she could continue analyzing his character.

She took her time with her answer. "It was obviously arson. Everyone knows that. Someone dumped some spirits directly on the shrine of the school's founder and torched it. Just that the school can't tell the public, as I'm sure you can imagine. It's bad for the _image_."

"And why does everyone think you did it?"

"Don't make the mistake of thinking of spoiled opinionated brats like Katherina von Rubenstein as 'everyone'." She wrinkled her nose. "You’d only do her a favor with that. But all right, if you really can't think it: I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, just like Valentin was when he drowned. And rich people don't like me because I don't belong to them. Oh, and because I don't give a damn about their power games. Yeah, those are the main reasons, I think."

Jonas wanted to say something clever in response, but even if he could think of something, his speech center was blocked. Only now did he realize what Eva had said. Who the hell was Valentin and when had he drowned? Why didn't he know about this? Had the guy drowned on the school grounds?

Again, Eva misinterpreted his silence. "That's just how it works with the rich. Well, the _really_ rich. They'd rather keep to themselves than associate with low-class scum like you or me. And, well, without wanting to spoil your mood now" - she took the cigarette between her teeth and pointed once at Jonas' appearance - "the fact that you're black probably won't make it any easier for you. Sorry."

 _More like_ _the fact_ _that there are so many racists running around here_ , Jonas thought, but he didn't say it out loud.

"Wow, that's what I call a welcome speech," he said instead, admittedly a bit gobsmacked by Eva's directness. "That really makes me feel a lot better."

"Trust me, it's better if you're prepared," she said unapologetically. "Otherwise, the awakening will just be unnecessarily painful."

He thought briefly of the black girl who had been sitting with Katherina von Something - the red-haired grump - and how she hadn't seemed like she should expect any kind of "awakening" from the other girls, but he could still only think of what Eva had said earlier. "Who is Valentin anyway, and what do you mean he was in the wrong place at the wrong time when he drowned?"

Eva paused and eyed him with a look that had honest surprise in it. "You don't know?" When no answer came from Jonas, she obligingly explained, "You do know about the graduation, don't you? No? God, then you have no context _at all_. The graduating seniors always have a graduation party here on the last day before summer vacation. It usually goes really well, there's no alcohol when lower years are present, and before this year the police only had to come once ...

“Well, this year it didn't go like clockwork. It started with some idiots pouring vodka and schnapps into the non-alcoholic drinks without anyone noticing, so that the majority of the attendees got drunk pretty quickly. Generally, it's a funny starting situation, I think, but it escalated pretty quickly. On the one hand, some other idiot - who wasn't me - set the library on fire, and on the other hand, as I said, Valentin Köhler drowned. In the pool in the basement. It's for our swim team." Instead of elaborating, she calmly took another drag from her cigarette. "I just find it strange that they couldn't even tell you about it."

Jonas frowned. "Why 'not even to me'? Why should I get special access to information like that?" Not that he minded. But he’d prefer to know his privilege so he could use it properly.

Eva looked him emotionlessly in the eye. "Because he had the place in room O303 before you did."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Eva and Maria are the German names for the biblical figures Eve and Mary.


	12. 1.10

Katie knew that Maria was usually still somewhere to read at this time of day, and there were two different options to do that: One of the specially arranged "reading nooks" made up of individual tables surrounded by chairs and a shelf full of books, and the library in the West Wing. For the east one no longer existed since the fire. _May_ _it_ _rest in peace._

This fire was what had been giving her a headache for what felt like ages now. Nothing about it fit. The school claimed it was a technical error. An electrical outlet had caught fire and set fire to surrounding books in the library. Ridiculous, this explanation. Especially since it was well known among the students that the fire had not broken out on one of the devices but on the shrine of the founder of the school - Arnold Neuwald, of whom now in several respects only ashes were left. Would still wonder what the hell the guy could have done to Eva that he deserved a second death. And that's what Katie was going to find out. She just _had_ to find out. There was nothing at this school that could happen without Katie knowing how and why.

She found Maria in the reading nook on the second floor in the West Wing. She did have a book open in her hands and was staring at it, however, it was pretty clear to see that she was not concentrating on the words that were in it. Her gaze went blank, as it always did for people when their minds were elsewhere. She was probably lucky she had opened it the right way.

It wasn't until Katie sat down across from her on a chair, which she moved with a loud scraping, that focus returned to Maria's eyes, and she looked up in irritation. "Katie," she said in surprise. "What are you doing here? I thought you didn't like reading."

"Yeeeah," the latter replied stretched and laughed a little, mostly to allow a bit of thinking time for herself. She had already had a few versions in her head of how to start this conversation. She could just come right out with it. She could start talking about something more trivial, though she couldn't think of much of that at the moment. Suddenly, she had a better idea. A rather clever idea, in fact. As clever as if she had planned it from the beginning. Her genius sometimes surprised even her.

"I um -" she fumbled a bit, looking down at her hands evasively. When people wanted to talk about something they were uncomfortable with, they usually tried to avoid eye contact, you just had to observe that in yourself. It's funny, actually. As if they were afraid their counterpart could stare right into their soul through their eyes. See their thoughts. That, Katie thought, would certainly end a lot of friendships.

She sighed. "I thought it would be appropriate to apologize," she lied. Keeping her head down, she looked back up at Maria. "About earlier, I mean. I know Eva is your friend, I guess I just wasn't thinking."

"Oh yeah, that ..." Maria had leaned back in her chair, her arms crossed. Her gaze began to cloud again. What had she been so internally preoccupied with all this time?

Finally, she just raised her shoulders. "It’s okay. Eva and I, we - well, you could say we're kind of ... drifting apart, you know? I was quite startled myself at first, when she suddenly arrived like that -"

"Really?" inquired Katie, trying to keep the curiosity out of her voice by keeping her posture hunched. Now would be a good time to ask. "Is it ... because of the fire?" At that, she lowered the volume a bit, as if anyone could overhear her in this completely empty evening hallway. It shouldn't sound insensitive to ask about it, since Eva's attribution of blame was a rumor. Rumors were plenty in at Dornhein. And most of them had a truth percentage of about 12%, which might seem an unusually specific number, but Katie had done the math. Only this time she was sure it was more. It was obvious, too, somehow. That was why she was here.

"Because of the ...," Maria began, and for a moment Katie feared she had gone too far with that, and that Maria wouldn't want to answer her now. But instead she slumped down and sighed in resignation. "You think she did it too, don't you?"

 _Who in Epiphany's name else could it have been?_ "Well, I don't know any more than anyone else here, I suppose, but I know not to jump to conclusions," Katie said, trying to sound both sincere and encouraging. If she got too direct now or said anything wrong, it would all be over in a moment, she knew that for sure.

"Oh man," Maria moaned softly, rubbing her forehead with her fingers. "You're right ..." Of course Katie was right. "Of course you're right. What do you really know unless you've been there yourself, right? Only - only I just can't believe that Eva was the one who did it, you know?" She fell silent and pressed her lips together. It was as if she was trying to stop herself from talking further. Now was a good time to follow up. _Don't rush it_ , Katie thought to herself. _Just don't._ It was a very sensitive moment that required sensitive handling.

"You're not just thinking that because she's your friend, are you?", Katie tried to get her started.

"I mean -" Maria tried to compose herself. She cleared her throat. "I mean that she wasn't the only one at that party who got pretty drunk. It was pretty obvious, for example, that Valentin was getting more and more certifiable by the minute. You know?"

"Valentin Köhler?" Katie was secretly annoyed at how little she was able to do to hide her surprise.

"He's been drinking - really drinking a lot," Maria continued, unperturbed. "I was afraid several times that he was just going to keel over."

Which also explained why he could just drown in a pool like that.

"But ... well, then Eva finally decided to accompany him in. She'd had a drink too, understandably, no one knew, but with her it was ... not so bad."

Which didn't fit at all with the versions Katie had heard of the story before.

"Anyway - anyway, then she came back to me at some point. Alone. And shortly after that, the whole library was on fire, too."

Katie raised her eyebrows, and realizing that Maria had finished her speech with this, added to her gesture, "That means you think Eva wouldn't have been able to set anything on fire at all, time-wise?"

Maria raised her shoulders a little forlornly. "I just mean, sure, it's a possibility that she lit the shrine and then walked out to avoid getting caught in the flames herself - and that's why so many claim they saw her there and stuff."

 _All right, Katie, focus now._ Whatever Maria was saying right now had to be burned into her brain to the point where she could recite it verbatim. She absolutely could not afford to forget anything important.

"But," Maria continued. "But maybe Valentin wasn't as drunk as he looked. I mean - surely he would have realized something was wrong and stopped drinking at some point, wouldn't he? I mean, it didn't help most of the others, but he's ... he's always been a little more careful about that."

"So that means," Katie slowly summarized, "you think Valentin might have done this on purpose? But after that, why would he just -" She faltered as it occurred to her just in time that she hadn't yet spoken aloud to Maria about Valentin's death. She didn't know how close the two of them had been. But still, it would be tactless to blurt it out so openly.

"I don't know," Maria said, obviously understanding what Katie had been trying to say. "Maybe ... maybe that was the plan?"

"The plan?" asked Katie, just barely able to keep herself from giving voice to her bewilderment. This was now taking on directions she herself had thought ridiculously far-fetched.

"Yeah," Maria said, looking down at the floor. "Or maybe just the fire was the plan, but then when it blew up, he just ... went down."

"But" - Katie still didn't know what to say to that - "if you mean that Valentin might have deliberately wanted to take his own life - why there? Why like _that_? What's the point?"

"Katie - I don't know," Maria clarified with a firmness in her voice that hadn't even been glimpsed before. "But Valentin wasn't always just the victim. And that's what I was trying to say, okay? You want to know what happened at the party, right? What _else_ happened?" Instead of answering, Katie just looked down at the floor for a moment and then looked back up. Possibly that could be taken as a yes without her having to say it out loud. "Well - whatever it is, Eva is not the key. So maybe just leave her alone in the future."

"If you say so," Katie said coolly, hiding her surprise at how caustic Maria's tone had become. "And you seem to be pretty into the stuff, so that’s that. But who the key is," she added, when Maria had probably already thought the conversation was over, "I still have to find out myself. And I will - you can count on it."

And she believed it - she really believed it. This riddle had its knacks, but Katie knew she was capable of solving it nonetheless, just as she had solved everything at Dornhein so far, and she would not allow herself any false modesty in doing so. False modesty was something girls were taught to talk themselves and their abilities down.

In fairness, it had to be said that Katie had underestimated the magnitude of this riddle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, that was Part 1. I doubt that anyone is actually going to read until here because AO3 is really not a place for original works lmao, but if you did, thank you so much. Maybe I'll upload the rest of the book as well someday, though I don't really think so at the moment. Anyway. Recommend this to your friends. SMASH that KUDOS-BUTTON. Idk, you get the point. Bye then for now!


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